


the start of something.

by theweakestthing



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, First Kiss, Hunting, M/M, Mild Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Not Quite Love Confession, Post-Episode: s05e22 Swan Song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:47:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29951562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theweakestthing/pseuds/theweakestthing
Summary: The sun sat fat in the sky behind his head, light cascaded down around him like honey spilling over his shoulders, gold leaf in his inky hair, backlit and moody in a way that reminded Dean of exactly what Cas really was.“Stay.” The word escaped his mouth, unbidden, like a runaway.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36





	the start of something.

Leaves fell like fire across the hood of the Impala. Thumbs tapping against the steering wheel, Dean watched the road markings flick on by as he hummed along to My Sharona, and tried desperately not to count backward to the last time he’d seen Cas to add up the distance between them. At least Sam was asleep in the passenger seat. If his brother was awake, then he’d be asking Dean what he was thinking so hard about, and there was no way that Dean was going to tell him the truth.

Castiel was an angel, he could handle himself, and there was no need to worry about him. He wasn’t worried anyway. Dean had seen Cas carve a sigil into his own chest just to clear a room full of angels, including himself. Cas had thrown a Molotov at Lucifer, Satan himself, while yelling the words ‘hey assbutt!’ Heck, Cas had gone deep down into the pits of hell just to pull Dean’s sorry soul back to Earth. There was nothing for Dean to worry about.

But he couldn’t stop thinking about Cas. It had been a while since he’d ‘checked in’ and that probably meant that Cas had his hands full, dealing with whatever nonsense those asshole angels were laying on him, but Dean couldn’t help but wonder if he’d forgotten about them.

In the grand scheme of things, Dean was nothing but a blip in the vast expanse of Cas’ life, the angel had been alive for nearly all of time. And despite how much Dean told everyone he was proud of it, he felt guilty about tempting an angel to fall from grace, and teaching him about free will. It would probably do Cas some good to forget about them.

Dean should forget about him, at least a little, it’d probably do him some good. Because, despite everything, he missed Cas.

It was dumb and irritating. And it was downright wrong. Dean did his best not to think about it and shoved it deep down inside himself, if he was good at one thing then that thing was repressing his feelings and not thinking about things. At least he should have been, since he’d been doing it all his life.

He tried to focus on the words but the song had already changed. Driving always led his mind to wander, which was usually fine when he was alone, but with Sam in the car with him, he’d have to come up with something when his brother asked what was on his mind.

“Hey, you alright Dean?” Sam asked groggily, he looked out at their surroundings as he dragged a hand down his face.

“Just peachy,” Dean said, smiling and showing teeth at Sam before turning back to the road, it stretched out endlessly into the night.

“Right,” Sam drew out, “that’s why you look like you’re about to bust a blood vessel from thinking too hard,” he added derisively.

Dean didn’t reply, instead he cranked the volume up.

* * *

The fluttery rustling of something that sounded both like feathers and clothes came while Dean chewed on his mouthful of double cheese burger. He barely startled when Cas sat across from him at the small table in their motel room.

“Dean, where is Sam? He said that the both of you would be here,” Cas said, with his usual flat affect. Dean had learnt not to expect so much as a hello by now.

For some reason, the fact that Cas had called Sam and not him stung. There was supposed to be some kind of bond between them, at least that was what Cas had said to Sam, so why was he calling Sam?

Dean smiled bitterly around his food and swallowed hard.

“Sammy’s out doing research,” he replied, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. It was such a pain in the ass when you burnt the bones, knew they were the right bones, and still the damn ghost remained. His own internet searches had gotten him nowhere. “He should be back soon,” he added, voice tight. He hated being interrupted while he was eating.

“I’ll wait here then,” Castiel murmured and drew his eyes across the motel room.

It was kind of bittersweet to finally see Cas after all the thinking he’d been doing. He hadn’t been able to keep the angel from his thoughts for long, wondering where he was and what he was doing, but now that Cas was finally there in front of him, Dean didn’t know what to say or do.

“How’s everything going up in the big H? You guys having diplomatic tea parties yet?” Dean asked. He couldn’t imagine what was going on in heaven, but if he knew anything about angels then he was sure that Cas had a whole damn lot on his plate. As far as he knew there was only one angel that wasn’t a complete asshole and they were sitting opposite him.

Cas sighed and turned his eyes onto Dean, deep ocean blues, Dean almost felt like he was drowning.

“I suppose you mean heaven?” Cas asked and Dean nodded. “It is proving difficult to get a race of creatures who know only servitude and obedience to come to a decision about anything,” he muttered gruffly. “Free will is certainly a burden.”

“Hey don’t start getting down on free will again,” Dean bit back, pointing at Cas with his burger still in hand, slices of onions slipped out from the confines and scattered on the tabletop. “You’re still here because of free will, it’s a god given gift and allows me to choose to eat this heart attack wrapped in bread,” he added and took a bite out of the burger for emphasis.

Something shifted in Cas’ face, as though he were remembering all the times Dean had made a choice, every single time he’d used his free will and exactly where it had got him. Dean swallowed, hard, and took a sip of his coke. Where his decisions and free will had gotten him was right back where he started. At least he had his brother back, Bobby was alive and doing the best he could given the circumstances, and Cas seemed to be doing okay. Dean had long ago learnt to take what good he could get.

“So what, you can’t handle them all looking to you for answers?” Dean asked, mostly to fill the silence growing between them and to stop the squirming in his gut at the way Cas was looking at him.

“It isn’t so simple as giving out orders, even if that was what I wanted to do, there’s a schism in how they think heaven should be run,” Cas muttered, brows furrowed as he stared hard at Dean.

“Well, that’s diplomacy for you,” Dean replied, twitching his brows in derision.

“Are you saying that a dictatorship would be preferable?” Cas returned flatly, he tilted his head slightly as he continued to stare.

“No, what I’m saying is that free will’s hard, you have to make all your own choices and deal with the consequences, and it means that you have to deal with other people’s choices too. Democracy is hard, but it’s worth doing,” Dean explained and finished off his burger, he wiped his hands on his denim clad thighs, and he wasn’t about to admit to Cas that he’d never voted. He probably knew already.

Cas nodded sagely, as though Dean had given him some actually decent advice, and Dean wondered if he had. He hoped he had. Dean Winchester wasn’t exactly known for his stellar advice, especially given the kinds of decisions he usually made.

Thankfully Sam chose that moment to burst through the door in a huff. Dean was grateful for the interruption. He didn’t need any more opportunities to put his foot in his mouth.

“How’d the research go Sammy?” Dean asked, though it was obvious.

“It’s didn’t,” Sam bit out, he grabbed Dean’s coke and sucked on the straw. Dean let the trespass slip. “Apparently she didn’t leave anything behind, she wasn’t sentimental, and her house mostly burned down anyway so there really shouldn’t be anything for her to be attached to,” he said, pointing at Dean with the straw end.

“And somehow she’s still kicking our asses across town and breaking people’s necks,” Dean muttered and pushed the laptop closed.

“Yeah,” Same said in that snippy way of his. Then his eyes fell on the angel sitting opposite Dean. “Oh, hey Cas,” he said, and dumped his messenger bag on the table.

“Hello Sam,” Cas returned gruffly, “is this what you required my presence for?”

“Yeah, kinda, I mean I’ve been on and off the phone with Bobby all day, we’ve run across town, burned some bones, I even went out to the burnt out husk of her house and I couldn’t find anything except this writing that I didn’t understand,” Sam said, he heaved a sigh. “I took some photos on my phone, but Bobby couldn’t figure out what it was, and I hoped that you might have an idea,” he added, fishing his phone out of his pocket.

Sam held the phone out toward Cas and the angel squinted at the screen.

“I am familiar with this script,” Cas said with a nod and sat back a little, “though I will have to visit the site to translate it. Your phone screen is simply of too low a quality to make it out,” he explained.

“Sure,” Sam said and frowned at his phone as he snapped it shut, “let’s go.”

* * *

With Cas sat in the backseat, they drove out to what was left of the Mary Clark’s home. Pulled up on the side of the road, Dean went straight for the trunk while Cas and Sam discussed the creepy writing, he was more preoccupied with not letting the damn ghost get the drop on him again than talking about crap he’d never understand anyway.

“This was a witch’s home,” Cas said, his eyes flitted about the charred mess of the wall as Sam ran the flash light over it.

“A witch?” Dean exclaimed, sneering as he looked down at the shotgun in his hands and wondered whether it would work on the ghost of a witch. “So we’re dealing with witch ghosts now?”

“No, that actually kind of makes sense,” Sam said, sounding every bit the Stanford graduate he should have been, though the tone always irritated Dean.

“How does it make sense Sammy?”

“Well, when I was doing my research I looked into the whole family, and for as far back as I could go, the whole family is spinsters and single moms,” Sam said, as though that explained everything, and it might have.

“That doesn’t mean shit,” Dean returned, “lot of single moms around and spinsters aren’t always spinsters, sometimes they’re just gay and no one wants to admit it,” he went on, the floorboards beneath him creaked as he shifted his weight.

“Thanks for the enlightening information Dean, but what I’m talking about are the signs of a coven, which seem to be written all over these walls,” Sam bit back, gesturing at the walls around them.

“Sam is right,” Cas said, the rough quality of his voice gave the statement unwarranted gravitas. Sam smirked at Dean. “These writings speak of the sanctity of the covenant. I believe they’re a protection spell.”

Dean kind of hated it when Cas sided with Sam, even if his little brother was right. It was a stupid juvenile feeling that he kept to himself. Cas wasn’t his personal angel.

“So what should we be looking for, a hex-bag or something, the whole house is ashes and doyleys,” Dean said as he began to rummage around the wreckage, the light of his flashlight shone through the bare springs of what was once a couch.

Whatever reply either his brother or Cas was going to make never came, as Dean was raised from the floor and launched through the blown out window into the sodden grass outside. Though he was only winded and likely bruised, it took him a moment to get back on his feet.

He grappled for the shotgun, fingers slipping in the wet grass, and bolted for the house. The usual sounds of an altercation sounded out through the night and Dean tried to pick up the pace. He slammed through the door and squinted into the darkness. Sam’s flashlight rapidly swished across the small cabin, providing next to no useful light, Dean’s was lost somewhere outside.

In the darkness Dean could barely make out charred and seared pink flesh that stood out through tattered clothes. Dead bony fingers gripped Sam and held him against the wall, and he grappled uselessly with his attacker. The ghost witch, witch ghost, whatever, was seemingly crushing his brother’s windpipe if his wheezing was anything to go by. Dean jumped over the couch and shot a buck full of rock salt into the ghost. It was gone, but the spectre would soon return.

“What now?”

“Hex-bag?” Sam suggested rubbing at his throat.

“So we’re looking for a needle in a haystack with Bette Midler hanging around waiting to Thackery Binx our asses?” Dean said, frustration rising as he stared back at Sam.

“I don’t think she’s gonna turn us into immortal cats Dean,” Sam threw back, scowling at his brother, “and anyway, you’re not exactly a virgin.”

“Just shut up and look,” Dean bit out, jaw tight as he scanned his eyes over the cabin. The place only had four rooms and one of those rooms was completely burnt black. Relatively, it was a pretty small haystack.

“Couldn’t you just smite her Cas?” Sam asked, picking his way along the outside wall.

Dean had almost forgotten that Cas was with them. He felt suddenly self-conscious, though Cas had long since stopped judging his every move, and watched the angel’s form turn toward them.

“It’s seems that she has tied her soul to this location,” Cas explained from across the room, eyes still on the text carved into the walls, “though I could attempt to smite her, she may still return.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Dean muttered.

He kicked the ancient TV stand over. The CRT dropped to the floor with a thunk and the floorboards beneath it creaked dangerously. It landed screen down, and Dean broke the back open with the butt of his gun. There was nothing inside.

Then he was across the room, being held against the wall by some invisible force as the ghost approached, coat hooks dug into his back. His eyes shifted over to Sam, who was scuffling around, and taking his sweet ass time pulling his gun out. Thankfully, the witch ghost was also taking her sweet ass time getting to him.

“Sammy,” Dean gritted out, vainly thrashing against the wall.

Sam took his shot and the ghost disappeared, dropping Dean to the floor in a heap. With a groan, he got back onto his feet. He was going to have a hell of a lot of bruises when this was over, if that was all he had in the morning then they’d call this hunt a wild success.

“There is nothing in the bathroom,” Cas said, appearing beside them.

“Right,” Sam nodded.

They broke apart again. Dean flipped the couch and tore at what was left of it with his knife, tearing the stuffing out, it was quickly apparent that there was nothing out of the ordinary in the couch. The coffee table was clear, as was the side table with the rotary phone on it. The rotary phone was clear too.

Pretty quickly, mostly due to Cas’ help, they’d made their way through the entire place and come up empty handed. They’d even torn at the walls. And still nothing. The ghost witch hadn’t made it easy, showing up every other minute to abuse Sam and Dean, she’d shown no interest in Cas at all.

Dean looked down at his feet and the shattered floorboards. He sighed heavily, of course, the crawl space. When he raised his eyes, Sam was staring back at him, obviously he’d come to the same conclusion.

“I’ll check the crawl space,” Dean announced before Sam could work up the nerve to say anything.

“You sure about that Dean, ‘cause I could do it,” Sam began.

“I already said I’m doing it,” Dean cut in, rounding his shoulders as he stared back at his brother. He passed the shotgun over to Sam and pulled the pistol out of his waistband. “And anyways, your limbs are all long and gangly, I’m a better fit,” he added, checking the magazine before he looked back at Sam.

“’Cause you’re short?” Sam returned, brows furrowed, and that familiar curl in the wrinkle in his brow made Dean’s heart clench.

It had barely been six months since he’d gotten his brother back, whole and intact if incredibly traumatised, and it was a little hard to believe that Dean could ever be so lucky. Maybe it didn’t have anything to do with him though. Maybe his brother just deserved better and the universe had decided to give Sam a break for the first time in his life. Either way, Dean wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, he was just happy to have his brother back. And hey, it wasn’t like Sam hadn’t been traumatised before the apocalypse. Sometimes it just took him off guard just how well things had turned out, considering the alternative.

“I’m taller than It’s A Wonderful Life over there,” Dean said, he titled his head toward Cas, and swallowed his feelings as he cocked the pistol.

“I don’t see how this discussion is relevant to the situation at hand,” Cas said, in his usual rough monotone, brows pinched.

“It’s not,” Dean said with a smile and made his way out of the house.

It wasn’t hard to find his flashlight, sat like a beacon in the grass, he grabbed it up and made for the crawl space. He kicked the grating in. He could have just pulled it aside, but they’d wasted enough time in the burnt rotten house, and Dean wanted to get this over with. Sam stayed in the house with Cas. They were the distraction, bait, as Dean searched for the source of the ghost witch’s power.

With a sigh, Dean clambered into the crawl space. Gun in one hand and flashlight in the other, he swept the barren area, there wasn’t much there besides a mound of something in the far corner. And of course it had to be in the far corner. Dean sighed again and moved further into the tight space. He wasn’t necessarily claustrophobic, but he didn’t exactly enjoy being shut in somewhere with only one way out and a ghost who also happened to be a powerful witch hanging around waiting to snap his neck.

He could feel sweat sliding down the back of neck. Dim slats of light came through the spaces between the floorboards, he could hear Sam and Cas moving around above him, and it felt good to know someone was there to have his back. A scuffle broke out overhead. Dean did his best to ignore it and continued on toward the dark far corner.

As he drew closer, the mound came into focus. The mound looked like it was made of ash and Dean could only guess as to where the ash had come from. He tried to put it out of his mind. Atop the mound was a small fabric bag, it was a pale yellow that reminded Dean of snot, he sneered but reached out for it nonetheless.

A shot rang out and Dean supposed Sam had dispatched the ghost witch yet again.

Before he could take the bag, a weight flattened along his back and Dean was forced hard against the ground, face in the dirt. The witch’s fingers were cold and bony around his throat. Dean could feel them grinding against the muscles in his neck, crushing his windpipe, it quickly became near impossible to breathe.

The apocalypse was adverted, things were supposed to go back to normal, or at least the kind of normal that Dean could handle. Instead he was being strangled by a ghost witch and he was pretty sure that she was trying to curse him if all that muttering was anything to go by.

He struggled to turn his gun toward himself and over his shoulder. This way, he was more than likely to clip himself, but he’d rather take the scalding rock salt than die in some dingy crawl space. His lungs were beginning to burn and his eyes had started to water. The ghost witch continued to whisper some sort of chant or incantation in his ear, and Dean wondered if he was getting dizzy or if her curse was starting to take hold. He had to get her off his back and quick.

The floorboards shattered above him, splinters flew into the air, in an explosion of wood. Wood chips and dust floated around Dean’s head. He coughed hard into his fist. Quickly, because the witch would be back any moment now, Dean grabbed up the hex-bag and torched it with the flicker of his lighter. The scream that followed almost rivalled the call of angels and Dean could only hold his hands to his head against it.

He was hauled out of the crawl space, hands gripped whatever parts of him they could grasp, and he was again in the house proper. Flames licked up all around them. The house was quickly engulfed, the whole house must have been cursed or hexed or whatever, booby trapped against people like them.

Before they could so much as step in the direction of an exist, Sam and Dean found themselves outside, stood beside the Impala watching the house burn for a second time.

“She is gone,” Cas said with finality.

Dean slumped against the side of the car. His heart was still jack hammering in his chest. He rubbed at his throat, certain that bruises would appear soon. A lot of bruises would appear soon. Yet again, Cas had saved his ass. He looked over at the angel, Cas was stood beside him a little too still to wholly pass as human, and looking entirely out of place and yet comfortable at the same time. Cas met Dean’s gaze like always. Bright perfect sky blues burrowed into Dean, and he wondered if Cas was looking through him again.

“Thanks Cas,” Sam said, his voice broke whatever spell had fallen over Cas and Dean, his small smile genuine shone at the angel.

Cas nodded, almost smiling himself. His face stilled suddenly, he tilted his head sideways, eyes sliding up to the sky.

“I must return to heaven,” he announced.

“Hey Cas,” Dean said, feeling more self-conscious than he’d felt since his teen years, he cleared his throat and rubbed his hands on his jeans, “don’t you go forgetting about us now.”

“I could never forget about you Dean,” Cas said gravely, as though it were the furthest thing from possible, as though the very thought was painful to think.

“Right,” Dean drew out in the uncomfortable silence that followed.

And in a moment Cas was gone, in that now familiar flutter.

* * *

Another lonely night, another long drive with Sam passed out in the passenger seat, leaving Dean alone with thoughts he didn’t want to think.

A song, one he didn’t quite recognise, came from the radio. It was something sickly sweet and nostalgic, reminding Dean of memories he’d never had. The lyrics mentioned home several times.

What was home to a man like Dean who hadn’t really ever known one? The home he’d grown up in was nothing more than a fading memory, good and bad all wrapped up together to make something that only hurt to think about, Dean didn’t think about it.

Right then, home was wherever his brother was. Though he knew that couldn’t and wouldn’t last. Sam wasn’t meant to hunt forever, Sam was supposed to finish college, Sam was supposed to be a lawyer, Sam was supposed to get the suburban life with the white picket fence and a loving wife, a couple of kids and a dog. His little brother was better than all this, deserved better than a constant carousel of similar looking motel rooms, road food and the constant threat of death breathing down his neck. But as it was, Sam was the only home that Dean had to cling onto.

After that, he supposed that home was the Impala, his baby. That home felt something like the tacky smell of leather, the feel of the steering wheel beneath his hands, the sound of the road passing underneath her tires, the cassette deck playing his old favourites as they tore across the country. It wasn’t much but it was his. Really it was all he had, Dean’s entire life could fit inside that car, and that thought left him cold.

It wouldn’t do to start feeling like home was on the flutter of wings, a trench coat and a gruff voice, and unending misunderstandings and confusion.

Cas had better things to do than follow him around. Especially after they’d avoided the apocalypse, Dean knew that he didn’t amount to much at all, and definitely not to an angel who had the entirety of heaven to look after. He hoped Cas thought of him, of both of them, at least once in a while. Defying god’s will and all of heaven together had to count for something.

“Hello Dean.” The rasp of Cas’ voice came from the backseat.

“Holy shit,” Dean yelled, he struggled to right the car as it swerved across the lanes, they were damn lucky that there wasn’t anyone out on these back roads at four in the morning. “What the fuck Cas?”

“What’s going on?” Sam groaned, eyes wide and chest heaving from the shot of adrenaline, he looked around the car until his eyes fell on Cas. “You’ve gotta not do that while we’re driving man,” he added. Sam again made himself comfortable in the passenger seat and almost instantly fell back asleep. It was gift that Dean envied.

“You prayed. I assumed you required my aid?” Cas said in the ensuing silence, head tilted toward Dean.

“I did not pray,” Dean said. He definitely hadn’t, he was sure; at least he thought he hadn’t. Of course he’d been thinking about Cas, but it was not a prayer.

“You must have, I heard you,” Cas said, defiantly.

“Okay then, what did I say?” Dean challenged, fingers tight around the wheel, though he regretted it the moment he said it. If Cas had heard him thinking then he didn’t want his thoughts thrown back at him.

“It wasn’t as direct as your other prayers,” Cas said, Dean watched him frown through the rear view mirror, “it was something more like a desire for reassurance,” he went on.

Dean sighed, heart still stuttering between his lungs, at least Cas hadn’t heard his exact words. Not that Cas would have read anything in them. Sam was there, though he was asleep, he could wake up at any moment and call Dean out on his bullshit.

“I was just thinking about you, wondering how you’re doing with those bastards upstairs,” he said, and it wasn’t exactly a lie.

“It is trying, but it is a task well worth doing, and I’ll see it through,” Cas said, he seemed a little more at ease than the last time they’d talked about it, it was nice to see Cas some kind of relaxed for once. His eyes were intent on Dean, stark blues shining in the rear view mirror. Something about that gaze made Dean feel trapped, foot caught unwittingly in the bear trap.

Dean nodded and turned his eyes back to the road, it seemed unending in the darkness.

“Hey, if they ever get under your skin and you feel like you’re gonna go postal or something, you can come hang out with us,” Dean said, body held rigid against a rejection he supposed was coming. “You don’t have to just turn up when you need help or when we’re in trouble, we’re friends Cas, you can just turn up if you want,” he continued, unable to swallow his need to explain himself and keep back the baying silence.

“I appreciate that Dean,” Cas said, voice seeped in gratitude, he leaned forward and closed his hand around Dean’s shoulder.

The handprint, which had once been imprinted on his shoulder, had stood as a testament to the ‘profound bond’ they shared. Cas had touched his soul and as far as Dean knew you didn’t just walk away from that without there being _something_ between you. He flicked his eyes to the rear view again and smiled back at Cas.

Then he was gone, and there’s was nothing in the rear view mirror but the road behind them, Dean shook his head and refocused on the road ahead.

* * *

There was blood in his hair, around his ears and on his teeth. He was coated from head to toe. He wanted to call first shower, but Sam was far worse off than him, and Dean was nothing if not a good big brother and so he let Sam go first.

The sheets weren’t his and so Dean had no qualms about dropping down onto the mattress. He ached all over. And he was pretty sure that he’d come damn close to breaking his ankle, it smarted something awful and Dean was thankful to be off of his feet. He knew that bruises were beginning to bloom under all the blood cake over his skin.

“Hello Dean,” Cas said, gruff tones and all, Dean hadn’t heard the telltale flutter over the hum of his various injuries.

He fell off the bed in a heap, groaning on the floor, he stood and glared at the angel. Cas only stared back at him impassively. Dean rolled his eyes and dropped back down onto the mattress.

“I’m never gonna get used to that,” Dean muttered, he wouldn’t dare get used to it, that’d mean expecting Cas’ arrival. He couldn’t rely on that, he couldn’t rely on anyone.

“I, uh, apologise if I startled you,” Cas said carefully.

“Well you did,” Dean returned, he reached down and gripped his ankle, sighing at the small relief it provided.

“Sorry,” Cas muttered.

Things were getting awkward. Cas wasn’t usually so _shy_. Dean was more familiar with Cas’ straight forward, blunt and literal nature. This twitchy behaviour was not entirely new but it was kind of surprising. Cas walked toward him, directly into Dean’s personal space, which was something that Dean was far more familiar with. He stared up into the angel’s eyes questioningly.

Cas reached out a hand toward him, fingers curled around his jaw, and all the aches and throbbing pain was swept away. When Cas pulled back, Dean pressed his own hand to his face. The blood was gone too. He sighed and slumped down, half sprawled across the mattress, and with the pain gone only exhaustion remained.

“Thanks Cas,” Dean murmured, face against the scratchy sheets, “could ya give Sammy a tune up when he gets out of the shower? Kid’s worse off than I was.”

“Okay Dean,” Cas said, and continued to stand at the edge of the bed. He still looked a little perturbed. It reminded Dean of the first day at school, when all the kids didn’t really know what to do and looked lost without their parents, and when he looked like that it was hard to remember that Cas was as old as dirt and could smite Dean in a matter of seconds.

“Dude, sit down, you’re making me nervous,” Dean said.

Cas dropped down onto the corner of the bed, jostling Dean slightly. It wasn’t often that Cas wasn’t staring at him, as though the eyes really were the windows to the soul, and Dean could see that there was something off from his whole posture.

“What brings you ‘round these parts anyway? Because I sure as shit didn’t pray,” he asked, brow arched as he shuffled around to get a better angle of Cas’ face.

It wasn’t Cas’ face, though Jimmy Novak was long gone, Cas was still wearing the man’s body. Jimmy had given Cas his blessing, and Dean supposed that Cas had grown used to it. Dean knew that he’d feel weird if Cas turned up looking like someone else. To him, this was Cas. It was odd, though, to have a friend who you couldn’t even really look at or truly hear without bleeding from the eyes and ears. He wondered if, when he died, he’d be able to see what Cas really looked like.

“The host, the other angels, they’re questioning my allegiances,” Cas explained, jaw tight.

“Again?” Dean bit out. He pulled himself upright and came to sit at the end of the bed, next to Cas.

“Yes,” Cas returned, hands toying with the ends of the trench coat, “they believe that heaven should be my priority above all else,” he continued, eyes straight forward.

“And it isn’t?” Dean asked. As far as he knew, Cas spent a lot of time up in heaven trying to clean up god’s mess, the least those assholes could do was be grateful.

Cas shrugged. Castiel, Angel of the Lord, solider, shrugged. Dean would have laughed if Cas didn’t look so dejected.

“I have other things I take responsibility for,” Cas said, voice like gravel under the tires of a car, eyes finally on Dean’s.

Dean frowned, brows coming down and together, as he understood what Cas was getting at.

“We’re not your responsibility Cas, we’re your friends,” he assured, hand flicking out to gesture between them.

“They think of you as pets,” Cas said, sneering as he worked the words out of his mouth.

“Yeah, well, they’re dickwards, what did you expect?” Dean said, as though it didn’t need saying, to him it was pretty damn obvious.

“They believe my connection to you clouds my judgement,” Cas stated, fabric caught in his closed fist.

“Oh, so it’s an excuse not to listen to you, great,” Dean bit back, and smacked Cas on the back, squarely between the shoulder blades. “Cas, you gotta stand up for yourself, take it on the chin, whatever, just, get on with it and sort heaven out because personally, I don’t wanna deal with any angel that isn’t you.”

“I have been,” Cas returned, eyes hard as he stared back at Dean.

Dean sighed and ran a hand down his face.

“I didn’t mean that you hadn’t, I just, you’re better than them and they’re idiots for not understanding that all you’re doing is trying to make things better,” he said, trying to smooth over his misstep.

“What if I can’t do it?” Cas said, eyes sliding off of Dean, he stared down at his hands, “what if there’s someone better?”

“Cas, there’s no angel up there better than you,” Dean said, the words were so easy, and they came out like air.

“Perhaps you are biased,” Cas returned, the corner of his lips twitched.

“Yeah, no, I definitely am,” Dean shot back, placing a hand on Cas’ shoulder.

They smiled at each other. There was barely a few inches between them, and Dean could have reached out and held on tight, if he wanted to. He wanted hold on and never let go.

Dean wanted to ask him to stay, the words were crawling their way up his throat, but he clamped his mouth shut. He couldn’t make Cas stay. He couldn’t and he wouldn’t. Cas needed his choices, needed his hard won freedom, and Dean wasn’t going to make it seem like it was him or heaven. There would be no choice anyway.

How could he compare to heaven? Dean almost laughed at himself. He barely compared to other guys, he definitely couldn’t compare to a decent guy, and there was no way that anyone would choose him over heaven.

He couldn’t and wouldn’t ask because it wouldn’t be fair to Cas, and it wasn’t like he deserved this anyway, he wouldn’t make an angel fall twice. Not that he could ever tempt an angel to fall in the first place. He couldn’t take all the credit for Cas figuring out free will and dead beat dads, though the thought of it still brought a fond smile to his face.

“Oh, hey Cas,” Sam wheezed, hair still wet with a towel around his neck, as he staggered into the room. One of his eyes had all but closed and was approaching complete blackness. A bruise shaped like a handprint curled around his throat, and a litany of cuts and bruises ran up and down his arms, his lip was split and there was a gash above his eyebrow. He looked awful and that was putting it lightly. They were lucky they didn’t have to take a trip to the hospital.

Cas rose from the bed, approached Sam, and touched his shoulder. Sam sighed with relief and all but collapsed onto his bed.

“Thanks Cas,” he murmured, smiling up at the angel.

“You’re welcome,” Cas replied and then he was gone.

Even if he did deserve to finally get what he wanted, which he definitely didn’t, it would just be his luck to have someone that couldn’t and wouldn’t stick around. Dean bit back the curse that jumped up his throat. Hands fisted in the sheets beneath him, knuckles turned white. He should have expected it, it was what Cas always did, and Dean was a dumbass for thinking any different. They – _he_ – would never be more important than heaven.

* * *

It was a quiet afternoon. It was the kind of day where there were no clouds and the sky seemed to go on for forever, the sunlight reflected off of his baby like she was posed for a magazine shoot and he had the hood up, tinkering away with a six pack sitting at his feet. On a day like this, the sweat clinging to his skin didn’t feel so bad. Tuning up his baby was the most relaxed Dean ever got. At this point, he was pretty sure that he could change her oil with his eyes closed, smirked to himself and thought that he might.

Something in the air changed, like it does just before lightning strikes, an oppressive pressure and Dean was almost certain that his ears popped. That soft flutter of fabric and maybe wings came. Dean turned from the car to find Castiel stood beside him, the angel never did learn his lesson about personal space.

“Hello Dean,” he said, as though he were just dropping by, as though he were a neighbour or any regular friend that could just swing by Bobby’s, and not an angel of the lord who went as quickly as he came.

“Hello yourself,” Dean muttered in reply. He reached down and pulled a bottle out from the cardboard pack, unscrewed the top and felt the condensation against his palm, and took his first sip of beer that afternoon. He intended to have many more.

They stared at each other for a long moment. It was the same as always, but it was also very different. Cas’ eyes were bright and dazzling in the unyielding sunlight. He could have dived right in. It was almost easy to forget that he hadn’t seen Cas in months, hadn’t heard a damn word from him in three months, one week and four days, not that Dean had been counting. And it wasn’t like he had a right to feel sore about it.

Dean should have known better than to have a staring contest with a celestial being millions, if not billions years old, unfathomably old, but he’d never been one to pass up a challenge. Still he’d lost. Again. His eyes skidded back to his baby’s engine. He took another swig of his beer and set it down in the shadow beside the wheel, and went back to work.

“So, what brings you down here with the common folk?” Dean asked, tinkering away at things that didn’t really need tinkering with. “Those assholes upstairs still giving you grief?”

“For now, things appear to have settled,” Cas said, and Dean could feel those deep ocean blues boring into him, “I won’t bore you with the details, but we’ve created a system that most feel _content_ with,” he went on, as though he wasn’t sure of his word usage.

“Oh, well that’s good,” Dean said, hedging his tone toward hopeful, just in case it wasn’t. He looked up at Cas from the corner of his eye.

“Yes, it is good,” Cas returned, staring right back at Dean, smiling slightly. The sun sat fat in the sky behind his head, light cascaded down around him like honey spilling over his shoulders, gold leaf in his inky hair, backlit and moody in a way that reminded Dean of exactly what Cas really was.

“Stay.” The word escaped his mouth, unbidden, like a runaway. 

“What?”

“Stay, just today, and tonight, stay. Stay for more than a couple of minutes, couple of hours. Stay the night with me,” Dean said, like a dam had burst and it was impossible to stem the flow now the words were free.

“Okay,” Cas said, low and soft, eyes squinted and head tilted just so.

This was usually where Dean explained what he meant, why he was asking, and he knew that he owed Cas that much but the words just wouldn’t come. It had taken so long just to let that first one out.

Instead of saying anything, Dean finished what he was doing, closed baby’s hood and finished off his beer. Castiel was watching him, same as usual and not so much at the same time. That inhuman intrigue was clear in the tension around his eyes and the bare openness of his mouth. Dean tipped his head toward the car.

“You know I do not require a car to travel,” Cas said, voice flat, and it almost seemed as though he was trying to piss Dean off.

“I know that, but it’s not about just getting somewhere,” Dean said, sighing, he slid a hand into his pocket and curled it into a fist, “it’s about the going, freedom, driving is like the perfect expression of my god-given free will, and anyway, it’s easier to talk when I have something else to focus on,” he went on lamely, trying to explain something he’d never had to explain before.

“So you want to talk?” Cas asked, head tilted downward, brows raised and forehead wrinkled.

Sometimes it was almost like they were speaking different languages with too much overlap. It was moments like this that reminded Dean of how different they truly were. Dean was a child of the road, raised in the passenger seat of the Impala, in motel rooms, on whatever television he caught and the music his dad put on the radio. Castiel was an angel, older than the Earth itself, with thousands of siblings and god himself as his father. Then again, they were both raised to be soldiers and protectors, nothing more and nothing less.

“Yeah, I wanna talk,” Dean returned, slowly making his way around the car’s sleek body.

“And that means that we have to drive aimlessly?” Cas asked, as though he were trying to figure out a particularly difficult puzzle, and Dean was just glad that he was trying.

“Just get in the car,” Dean said and climbed into the driver’s side without waiting for Cas to follow. Cas followed anyway, sliding in beside Dean as he started up his baby’s engine. The radio came to life with the rest of her. He reached over and turned it down before he began to pull out of the junkyard, and Cas was staring hard at the side of his face all the while.

It wasn’t long before the road was stretched out long toward the horizon ahead of them. That asphalt bent around curves and twisted between trees. Dean tried to collect his thoughts, fingers drumming against the steering wheel, foot easy on the pedals as his mind whirred.

“You really gonna stick around for the whole day?” Dean asked, almost tentative, as though Cas might disappear at any moment, and the worst part was that he just might.

“I said I would,” Cas returned mildly.

“Yeah you did, but you’re always running off the moment the danger’s gone or whenever you think we don’t need you anymore,” Dean said, running his teeth along his lip, eyes glue to the road. He couldn’t look at Cas and see the lack of understanding in his eyes.

“At that point my presence is no longer required,” Cas said, tone even.

“It might not be ‘ _required’_ , but it sure as shit is wanted,” Dean returned, cutting his eyes toward Cas, brow arched as he waited for...something.

“I don’t understand,” Cas replied eventually.

“Of course you don’t fucking understand,” Dean gritted out, restraining himself from smacking the wheel, instead he tightened his grip. “Don’t you want to be here, with me, sometimes?” He added, voice growing small as he lost steam.

“Yes,” Cas said, frowning, as though it should have been obvious, “I enjoy your company Dean, you’re my friend.”

“Friends don’t just up and leave mid-conversation. Friends say goodbye, they tell you why they’re leaving, and they make plans to come back,” Dean said, so many supposed friends had done exactly what Cas did and he was still sore about it, but then again Dean had done the same too. And anyway, Cas always came back. Dean was beginning to feel like an idiot for even bringing it up.

“I understand that, but our relationship is different, I am an angel after all,” Cas said, almost smiling, as though he’d told a joke.

“Yeah, and you can just come and go as you please without consequences,” Dean was almost sneering, he was getting angry. He was frustrated. Usually, he could get by without saying explicitly what he meant and felt, but Cas was an angel, an entirely different species, and barely knew anything about humans, he couldn’t skirt around the issue anymore. “It really pisses me off when you do that.”

“I thought you understood that I have obligations, you know where I am when I’m not with you,” Cas said, speaking slowly, frowning at Dean.

“Sure, I know where you are, but I don’t know when you’re coming back or if you’re coming back,” Dean said, struggling not to let his hand fly out between them and instead flexed his fingers around the steering wheel.

“And that upsets you?” Cas asked, head tilted as he continued to stare at Dean’s profile.

“Cas, the near three years we’ve known each other, that’s nothing to you, you’ve been around for millions of years and sometimes I wonder if you’ll poof off to heaven for a while and when you come back it will have been too long and we won’t know each other anymore,” Dean said, eyes resolute and steady on the road ahead, but he could feel his hands shaking and readjusted his grip.

“Dean, that’s not going to happen,” Cas said, voice low and serious, as though Dean had offended him.

“It’s not?” Dean asked, he didn’t want to hope but it was already spider-webbing its way outward from his chest and through his body.

“I can assure you, it will not happen,” Cas replied, as if it was as easy as that.

“I just want to, I just want us to be real friends, and Cas, I don’t know if you noticed but I don’t have any friends, they either leave or they die,” Dean said, jaw tightening, holding back the memories of all the people he’d lost. The average person his age had maybe only lost a grandparent or two and he tried not to be resentful of that.

“And you’re worried about that?”

“I guess I am, yeah,” Dean said, and ran his tongue along the sharp edges of his teeth.

“I will do my best not to die within your lifetime,” Cas said, and Dean didn’t miss the humour in his voice, “and I...I would like to be a permanent part of your life.”

“Good, ‘cause I’d like that too,” Dean returned, sharper than he would have liked to say something like that, but he knew it was the only way those words were going to come out.

A blanket of silence fell over them. It wasn’t entirely uncomfortable, but it still felt tense, there was so much left to say. Maybe there always would be. He tried to work the words out of his mouth, but in classic Dean Winchester style they just wouldn’t come. Fingers tapped the steering wheel. He tried not to watch Cas from the corner of his eye, though he knew that Cas was still watching him.

The light was beginning to dwindle as the sun kissed the horizon. It surprised him a little, and they must have been out for longer than he thought. Dean knew the area well enough, and drove up to the crest of a hill, and pulled in to park at what was definitely some kind of make out point, thankfully it was a school night. He climbed out of the car and Cas followed.

Dean perched on the hood, heels digging into the dirt beneath him. Cas copied him, hands braced against the hood of the car, he looked out across the town that sprawled out from the bottom of the hill. The red and orange hue of light brought warmth and colour to Cas’ skin. Dean wanted to slide closer. Really, he wanted to unglue his tongue from the roof of his mouth and say all the things he’d wanted to say to Cas since they’d stopped the world from ending.

He wished he’d brought the six pack with him, at least then he’d have something to do with his hands and his mouth, and it might have made it easier to talk if he had a few beers in him. Though, maybe words weren’t enough.

In the blink of an eye, the sun was gone from the sky. They stared up as the stars began to shine through, twinkling bright and strong, the way you’d never see anywhere near a city. Dean looked down at the hood of the car. Stars shone in its reflection, but his eyes were drawn to Cas’ hand between them and before he could lose his nerve, Dean dropped his hand over Cas’. The angel moved only to stare at their joined hands.

“I don’t want you to stick around just because I’m asking you to Cas,” Dean said, staring at the deep darkening purple of the sky above, “I want you to want to stick around. I know you think that we don’t want you around when you’re no longer needed or whatever, but you’re more than what you can do for me and Sam, you’re my friend Cas, you’re my best friend,” he rambled on, fingers flexing around the smooth skin of Cas’ palm.

“As I said earlier Dean, I want to be here and I want to be a part of your life, but I have a duty to heaven too,” Cas said, voice even and steady like a lazy river pulling Dean along, and he turned his hand over under Dean’s.

“No, I get that,” Dean said, and swallowed thickly before he could speak again. “I’ve got my own duties, I’ve got Sammy and Bobby to look out for, and I’m not asking for you to hang up your wings and spend every second breathing down my neck,” he went on, finally building up the courage to look Cas in the face, those blue eyes always did a number on him and he found his words stuttering in his throat. “I just wanna know that I’m gonna see you.”

“I am only a prayer away,” Cas said, and if he hadn’t been smiling when he said it you wouldn’t have known that he was trying to tell a joke.

“Yeah, sure you are Field of Dreams,” Dean muttered, huffing out a laugh, shaking his head as he looked away.

“I will make an effort to be around more often,” Cas said, sliding his fingers between Dean’s, “now that things are in something of an order, I will have more free time.”

“Is that a promise?” Dean asked, head tipped down with his brows raised, he stared into Cas’ eyes as though he were challenging him to back down.

“Yes Dean, it’s a promise,” Cas assured, staring right back at him.

“Okay, awesome,” Dean said, unable to stop himself from smiling, and he slid closer to Cas until their shoulders were touching.

They sat there silently for a moment, hands still clasped between them, watching each other in that way that made Dean’s skin tingle with electricity. He ran his thumb over Cas’ knuckles. If Cas had been anyone else, if this didn’t mean so much, he was pretty sure that they would already be kissing. But it was too big and it meant too much. And he felt just fine sitting there watching Cas watch him, he could have done it for the rest of his life and not feel like he’d wasted a moment.

“There is much that I love about Earth,” Cas began, eyes turned back toward the sloping hill, the town below them and the sky above. “Nature holds so much intricate beauty that I could stare at it for a thousand years and still find something new to see and marvel at. And mankind has built so much out of all of this, good and bad things, and all of it is a marvel both terrifying and awe inspiring. You all struggle everyday to live to the next one. And every choice you make is a gift, and despite everything it put you through Dean, I’m glad you made the choices you did, because they brought our paths together,” he said, speaking like all the books Dean had ever read and half forgotten.

Dean’s heart stammered so hard in his chest that he had to gasp to catch his breath. He coughed into his fist, hiding his stumbling recovery.

“Well, I think I already said I wouldn’t change a damn thing, if I could go back I’d do it all over again,” he said, shifting against the car, still holding onto Cas’ hand.

“I think I would too,” Cas said, with that quiet confidence, making Dean shiver.

Dean wasn’t sure if it was a conscious decision, but before he knew it, he was pressing his mouth to Cas’. The angel tasted like a summer morning, cut grass, bird song coming in through the open window, fresh air and skies that seemed a billion miles away. He was laughing when he pulled away. Cas smiled back, that broad wide thing, and Dean couldn’t help but kiss him again.

He fell asleep in the backseat of the Impala, Led Zeppelin coming low from the stereo, Cas in the front seat trying to hum along. And when he woke up, the angel was still there.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos would be much appreciated.  
> You can catch me on tumblr @ theweakestthing and twitter @ th_weakestthing  
> xx


End file.
